


The Itsy Bitsy Spider

by Squirrel_Stone



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcy Lewis-centric, Darcy is Bucky's Daughter, Darcy is Natasha and Bucky's Daughter, Darcy is Natasha's Daughter, Everything Hurts, F/M, Pain, Parallel Storytelling, Psychological Torture, Red Room, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:58:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3432155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squirrel_Stone/pseuds/Squirrel_Stone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her mother hasn't seen her recently enough to recognize her.<br/>She can't see her father or they'll know.<br/>Her lover is starting to notice something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In the wake of the season finale of Agent Carter, I present to you some short, Red Room-y goodness!

_“Come on, milaya, wake up,” a soft voice urged, and blue eyes opened to see the Winter Soldier. “We need to hurry,” he declared, and the brunette girl sat up, the handcuff on her left wrist keeping her attached to the bed. The Winter Soldier reached up to it and broke the cuff around her wrist. Without warning, he pulled her to her feet and took her hand in his own, leading her out of the room._

Darcy slept with her left hand above her head. That was one of the first things Steve noticed after moving in with her. She slept on either her back or her left side, but her left hand was always above her head. Whenever she woke up the next morning, she laid in bed, just smiling either at Steve or the ceiling like she needed a moment to adjust to the idea of waking up in Stark Tower with her fiancé by her side.

_The Winter Soldier got her to Ukraine before he told her the truth. “I can’t come with you,” he said once his story was done. “If I do, they’ll just put more resources into finding us and we’ll be more likely to be caught.” He told the girl where to go before he headed back to Russia._

Darcy left the meeting before she even walked into the conference room. Some congressman was at the Tower to discuss how to get rid of HYDRA, and Darcy claimed she had forgotten something in the room. No more than twenty minutes later, the congressman had been shot from across the street, and when Clint and Natasha ran over to investigate, they found a note on the roof that read ‘he was HYDRA.’

_The girl found a life for herself in America less than a year later with an astrophysicist named Jane Foster. She tased a god. She wound up in Norway. She helped save the world from Dark Elves. She killed the HYDRA agent assigned to kill Jane before he could complete his mission or rat her out to his superiors. She wound up in New York. She met a man named Steve. She fell in love. Everything went to shit._

In the middle of the night, Darcy left her room to get some water. It was only the second time in her life she’d left her bed in the middle of the night without a mission being involved. She stopped when she saw Natasha watching a video in the common room. It had come out in the HYDRA data dump, as had a few other strange clips involving the Black Widow, the Winter Soldier, and a young girl with dark curls and pale blue eyes. The girl was blowing bubbles, Natalia and the Asset praising her for killing her mark. For the first time in a long time, Darcy headed back to her room, went out on the balcony, and started blowing bubbles.

_Steve proposed to her but said he would understand if she didn’t want him because of the mess his life was at the moment. Darcy accepted the proposal and promised to help him find Bucky. She didn’t make that promise for Steve._

It was the last straw when Natasha heard Darcy singing in her sleep. She was taking a nap in the common room on the sofa when she thought everyone else on a mission, but it was only a three person job and her skills weren’t required. Darcy was barely whispering the words to “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” in Russian. The usually cool and collected assassin almost had a panic attack.

_Natasha found Darcy practicing ballet in the training room when she got back from a mission. She joined the brunette, neither paying the other any mind. For Natasha, it was nice to have someone else who knew ballet in the Tower. It didn’t take Natasha long to realize Darcy was better than she expected; she had trained professionally._

Before Natasha could confront Darcy, the Tower was under attack. The Avengers were faced with less than impressive operatives, and it didn’t take anyone a minute to realize they were being distracted. The question was, what were they being distracted from?

Natasha yelled at JARVIS, asking where Darcy was. She was in the common room on the top floor, and Natasha raced to her daughter, the others not far behind her. They arrived to see a bloodbath, HYDRA agents lying all over the room dead. In the center of it was Darcy on her back, a man on top of her with a strong grip on her wrist, slamming her hand down on the ground over and over again in an attempt to make her drop the knife.

No one got the chance to intervene before Darcy spun the knife, slitting the man’s wrist. He let go of her on reflex, and she kicked him off of her before stabbing him in the chest. The man let out a cry of pain and fell back, but removing the knife revealed that a bulletproof vest had taken most of the damage. It would be easy to defeat him in his weakened state, but before Darcy could take action, gunshots rang out.

One!

The man went down, blood pouring from the wound on the side of his head.

Two! Three! Four! Five! Six!

Clicking sounds filled the room, and Darcy looked to the other entrance to see the Winter Soldier, angrily shooting an old revolver despite the fact that he’d run out of ammo. Darcy ran up to the man without a second thought and wrapped her arms around him.

Tony spoke out in an attempt to tell Darcy that she was hugging the Winter Soldier and he was dangerous, but Darcy only hugged the man harder.

“Papa,” the brunette whimpered, and Bucky dropped the gun to gently pet Darcy’s hair.

“It’s alright, milaya,” he whispered. “You’re safe now. Papa’s here.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only slightly less painful than the post-credits scene of Ant-Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, you guys wrung another chapter out of me. And yes, there will be a few more. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go sob in a corner.

It was three in the morning when Darcy found herself in the training room, dancing ballet to a slow song. She moved slowly and smoothly, each movement blending into the next. As Tchaikovsky changed from peaceful to angry, Darcy faltered.

She went from up on the toes of one foot to down on her knees, pain searing through her head. “No,” she whimpered, putting her fingers on her temples. She took a deep breath.

_She was sitting in a chair, her eyes filled with tears, but they refused to fall. There were marks down her cheeks that had long since dried, but she hadn’t gotten the chance to wash her face. She had a vice grip on the edge of the chair, and she knew there would be imprints left when she moved._

_A man in his fifties or sixties walked up to her, a sickening grin on his face. “There’s my girl,” he cooed, placing a finger under her chin._

_She jerked her head away, glaring at the man. “I am not. Your girl,” she spat. “And I’m going to get out of h—”_

_The man slapped her across the face. “Did I say you could speak?” he snapped._

_“No, sir,” she whispered, earning her another slap. This time, she remained silent._

_The man walked away, yelling at the officers in the room. “Teach her a lesson about respecting authority then wipe her,” he commanded, and before the girl knew it, she was on the floor, getting kicked in the stomach._

Darcy shook her head. “No, no, no, no, no,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to remember.” She forced herself to her feet and stumbled to the lab, ordering JARVIS to lock the door behind her. “Don’t let anyone in and don’t tell anyone what I’m doing,” she ordered.

“Yes, Miss Lewis,” JARVIS replied obediently.

Darcy went to work, breaking a large lamp and rewiring it. She set up magnets and wires and all sorts of other things until she was at the computer, inputting a formula.

“Miss Lewis, may I inquire as to what you are doing?” JARVIS asked.

“You know what I’m doing, Jarv,” Darcy said simply, dragging the modified lamp over to a chair. “And you already promised not to call anyone.” She shrugged off her jacket and grabbed a piece of plastic, setting it between her teeth. She sat down in the chair and gripped the armrests, her eyes darting to the countdown on the computer screen.

_Three… two… one._

The plastic muffled Darcy’s scream as bolts of electricity went from the modified lamp to her head. Thirty seconds later, the machine stopped, and Darcy rolled out of the chair, landing on her stomach on the floor and taking the lamp out with her.

“Would you like me to call for help?” JARVIS asked.

Darcy whimpered and tried to roll over onto her side.

“Miss Lewis, if you do not respond, I will call for help.”

Darcy spat out the makeshift mouth guard and looked up at the ceiling. “I’m fine,” she declared, voice cold and emotionless. She stumbled to her feet and looked around, her eyes landing on the fallen lamp. In a fit of anger, she kicked it and turned to exit.

* * *

 

“Hey, has anyone seen Darcy?” Steve asked. “There’s a change of her clothes in the practice room, but I can’t find her.”

Both Bucky and Natasha frowned and furrowed their eyebrows. “That’s not normal,” Natasha mused. “She was always really neat and organized. She had to be.” She turned to Bucky. “Did anything change?”

The man shook his head. “If it did, I don’t remember it.”

“Okay, who fucked up my lab?” Tony demanded, storming into the common room. “There’s a chair, a lamp, and a computer, all lying on the floor broken, and there’s something funky on the lamp, magnets and stuff.”

Bucky paled. “What kind of lamp?” he asked. “Medical? Big? Half sphere?”

“Um… yes to all,” Tony replied. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, but one of those lamps can be modified to send out an electrical surge similar to how HYDRA wiped my and Darcy’s minds,” he explained. “They were used as torture on our— _HYDRA’s_ —enemies all the time. If one of those was used on Darcy, things could be… bad. And that’s the nice way of putting it.”

Tony moaned and put his head in his hands. “So we have another round of ‘chase down the assassin?’”

Natasha grit her teeth together and braced her elbows on her knees. She let out a curse in Russian and shook her head. “JARVIS, please tell me you have footage of what happened in the lab last night,” she begged, looking up at the ceiling.

“I’m afraid I’ve been sworn to secrecy,” JARVIS replied, earning a round of groans from the four superheroes. After a moment’s hesitation, the AI continued. “However, I can show you footage of what happened outside the lab during the time surrounding Ms. Lewis’s time in the lab.”

Steve looked up at the ceiling hopefully. “Yes please!” he immediately replied, and the TV switched on.

The four watched on as Darcy collapsed in the practice room and went down the elevator and to the lab. JARVIS piped up, “I’m afraid nothing of importance happens for the next half hour, so I shall skip ahead.” The video fast forwarded, and they watched as Darcy left the lab, broke into the armory, stole a pistol and some of Natasha’s Black Widow Bites, and left the Tower.

“There wasn’t anyone else on that video,” Steve declared, staring blankly at the screen.

Bucky sighed and slumped his shoulders. “That means that either whoever did this to her had been in the lab for a long time before and after—”

“—Or she did it to herself,” Natasha finished. “I’m not sure which one is worse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has anyone else seen the post-credits scene for Ant-Man? Cause I have and I'm screaming and crying and in desperate need of happy, fluffy fics.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We find out what Darcy's been up to.

Darcy walked away from the Captain America exhibit in the Smithsonian and snuck through a door to a stairwell, rushing down to a hall with walls, floor, and ceiling made of concrete. Fluorescent lights shone on her, making her hair look shiny and her stolen black outfit even darker than it already was. She walked down the hall until a young scientist crossed her path.

The scientist gave Darcy a strange look. “Wait, aren’t you-”

Darcy had the man in a chokehold before he could say any more, keeping him there until he was dead. She took the clipboard from the body and read the top piece of paper. She stared at it for a moment, and if her frown could have gotten any worse, it did.

Dropping the clipboard, Darcy ran down the hall and into a room, watching as another scientist spoke to a blonde girl lying in a reclined chair.

“You’re a ballerina,” the scientist told the girl. “Anything involved with assassinations you are asked to carry out, you will associate with the ballet. You will not realize what you’re doing.”

Darcy ran forward, tackling the scientist to the ground and wrapping her hands around the woman’s neck. “Where are the others?” she demanded. She loosened his grip just enough for the scientist to speak.

“In the practice room,” she choked out.

Without sparing a second thought, Darcy broke the woman’s neck and picked up the unconscious blonde girl. She walked down another hall, one that she knew all too well, and kicked open a door to reveal twenty-seven girls standing at a barre, practicing holding arabesques.

Once one girl noticed Darcy’s presence, they all ran to the center of the room, forming lines of seven with six in the back row.

“Good morning, волк,” they all greeted her in a sing-song voice.

Darcy looked the girls over before she quickly told them, “Each of you, grab a blanket from your room and meet me back here. Sixty! Fifty-nine! Fifty-eight!”

The girls took off running out the door, all being back in the room before Darcy hit thirty.

One girl, a redhead looking like she was about fifteen-years-old, came back with two blankets and placed the extra one in the blonde’s lap before falling back in line.

“A!” Darcy snapped, and the redhead took a step forward, her face stone cold. “Where are your other instructors?”

“They’re on vacation, волк,” she told her. “We only have Doctor and Trainer now… and you, now that you're back.”

Darcy gave the girl a nod, and she stepped back to her row. “All of you, single-file line!” she barked. The girls took less than three seconds. “Follow me.” Darcy turned, careful not shake the blonde in her arms too much before heading down the hall and opening a back exit. The bright sun met her eyes, and she spared a glance to her left. The Smithsonian museums were far away now due to the size of the compound underneath.

The Wolf walked over to a school bus in a nearly-empty lot and used a key to open the door. She’d already checked police scanners twice that day, and the bus hadn’t been reported missing. She wasn’t sure how long that would last.

“All of you, take a seat,” she ordered, and the girls split up, each taking a little bench for themselves. She laid the blonde girl down on an empty bench and ordered the girl across from her to make sure she didn’t fall over.

Darcy walked back up to the front of the bus and got in the driver’s seat, starting up the machine. They were in New York by noon.

* * *

 

“We need to know what Darcy’s primary order was,” Natasha declared, clutching her mug of tea. “Whatever her primary order was when you got her out is what she’ll try to do now.”

Everyone looked to Bucky expectantly. “Don’t ask me, last order I remember giving her was to run, and that wasn’t a primary directive,” he explained.

Steve sighed and looked down at his tablet (the image was upside down, and he had no idea how to fix it). “There haven’t been any reported sightings of an assassin in the area. How’s facial recognition?”

“It’s not,” Tony replied. “We have nothing; she could be in China by now.”

Bucky shook his head and made a disapproving noise. “She doesn’t have the HYDRA contacts anymore, and most of the work she was rented out for was in Russia anyway, so even anyone who doesn’t know she left HYDRA is out of reach. She’s still on the continent.”

“Well that’s something,” Bruce supplied.

Thor just frowned, looking about as mopey as he had since Darcy first disappeared a week ago. “It’s not enough,” he objected. “I fear for her.”

“She can take care of herself,” Natasha assured him. “As long as her primary directive wasn’t to report to someone, she’s safe.”

Bucky’s eyes glazed over for a moment. “Safe…” he muttered. “That was—that was her job, keeping someone safe, protecting them.” He lightly hit himself in the head. “Who was it who was it who was it?” he asked quietly.

“Maybe a political figure?” Clint offered. “Does a senator suddenly have a niece visiting or a new girlfriend?”

Tony typed in a few things on his computer, and he suddenly had images of every U.S. senator at events over the past week. “Escort, escort, escort, daughter, escort he’s paying to pretend she’s his daughter, escort, escort, hey I know that woman, escort, escort, granddaughter, escort… nada.”

Bucky shook his head. “No, she was keeping them safe while they were transferred somewhere. She came back right after that and I got her out,” he declared.

A phone rang before anyone could say anything else, and Tony pulled out his cell.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Pepper said over the line. “Get everyone down to the lobby.”

Tony nodded a little. “Sure thing,” he replied, hanging up the phone. “Let’s see what’s in store for us.”

The seven entered the elevator, and when the doors opened into the lobby, they saw 28 girls in black leotards with blankets around their shoulders looking around the building, oohing and aahing at everything they saw. Slightly behind them was Darcy, watching them like a hawk to make sure no one wandered off.

“Oh,” Bucky said, his voice almost a squeak. “I remember now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare for fluff, misunderstandings, and awkwardness. Not necessarily in that order. Also, волк, pronounced "volk" means wolf.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avengers, meet Darcy's ducklings.

“Attention!” Darcy barked, and the girls fell into four rows of eight. “Ladies, these are the Avengers, you will do everything they say without question. They’ll be your guides here. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Волк,” the girls chimed together.

Bucky walked up to Darcy and wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back and petting her hair. “Oh, you had us so worried,” the man sighed.

Darcy was stiff in his arms, eyes confused as she looked around. “Papa, why are you showing such a sign of affection?” she asked. “You haven’t held me like this since I was a child.”

Bucky pulled back, his eyebrows furrowing together. “What happened to you, milaya?” he asked, not answering Darcy’s own question. “Who sent you out?”

“Primary directives include: obey trainer, obey handler, obey father, protect the trainees,” Darcy replied coldly. “Research indicates that the Avengers are experts in protecting others and show favoritism to children. Their base, Avengers Tower, is the safest place for the trainees to be.”

“Oh,” Bucky sighed. He straightened his back and turned to the team. “It’s… okay, she’s fine,” he declared. “At least for now.”

Steve stepped forward. “Thank God you’re safe,” he breathed. He leaned down to kiss her, but Darcy moved quickly and flipped him so he was on his back on the floor, his arm twisted up and the heel of Darcy’s boot at the junction between his shoulder and his arm.

“Unwanted sexual advances may cause damage to the asset,” Darcy declared coldly before letting Steve go. “Next time, you die.”

“That’s enough,” Natasha quickly jumped in. “We are all going to go upstairs and get this sorted out. Come with me.” She turned on her heel and went back into the elevator, 35 people following her. Thanks to Tony’s need for extravagance, they all fit in one car despite it being a bit of a squeeze.

When the doors opened, the new Black Widow agents filed out, keeping themselves in an orderly line. “Practice form 62 in the common area,” Darcy ordered.

The girls ran off, and Darcy turned to the Avengers, her back stiff straight. “Where is the kitchen? The trainees have not eaten in twelve hours.”

“Actually, we need to—”

“We can talk about it while we make lunch,” Natasha cut Steve off. She remembered going hungry and training anyway—it wasn’t fun and girls would pass out. “Come with me.” Natasha walked to the kitchen, everyone following her lead. She pulled out a jar of peanut butter and a knife, passing them to Clint before going to get the jelly and bread.

All eight worked in silence for a moment, trying to get the sandwiches done as quickly as possible before Bucky spoke up. “Darcy, where have you been?”

“Retrieving the trainees from a HYDRA facility in Washington D.C.,” Darcy replied simply. “My intel indicated that HYDRA would no longer keep them safe, so I went back to retrieve them from where they had been previously escorted.”

Thor looked confused. “Was that your mission prior to leaving HYDRA?” he asked. “You were to escort them to the nation’s capital?”

Darcy looked to Bucky, and he gave her a nod. “You can tell them if you want,” he assured her. “You used to trust these people, you just don’t remember it.” Bucky felt a hint of déjà vu, only this time he was the one assuring Darcy he could trust others, not the other way around. “You don’t need me to tell me what to do. From now on, you get to make decisions for yourself.”

Darcy nodded and turned back to Thor. “My mission was to protect them during their relocation from Moscow. With no further assignments until now, my mission was to continue to protect them.

“It is my understanding that today they all received injections that made them more susceptible to suggestion and all believe they are ballerinas training to be part of the opening ceremony next Olympics. It will wear off within a week, and I have no other way of maintaining their illusion.

“Shit,” Tony muttered, putting together one of the sandwiches and pushing it to the side. “How are we going to explain the whole ‘assassin’ thing to them? And how do we know they’re not going to turn around and kill us at any second?”

“I am uncertain as to how to explain the situation to them without damaging them emotionally, but they will not kill,” Darcy promised. “At this point in their training, they have to be given instructions within an hour before the event and have an extra injection to mask their actions in their minds.” She glanced at the entryway to the kitchen, knowing the trainees were not far beyond. “A is the eldest and Ъ is the youngest. I’m not certain if age will affect how long their injections last or if they’re given different doses.”

Bruce furrowed his eyebrows. “Aren’t those just Russian letters?”

“It’s all they require to complete training and brief missions,” Darcy replied coldly. “They can be distinguished from one another and easily replaced if necessary.”

“That’s enough,” Natasha cut her daughter off. She finished the last sandwich, putting it on a paper plate, 28 of which had been pulled out at some point in the conversation. “Come on, let’s get them their food.”

Without waiting for a response, Natasha put three plates on one arm and four on the other and walked out to the common room. She almost winced when she saw the girls sparring, going back and forth, practicing the same motions. Apparently form 62 was the same now as it was when she was young.

Darcy walked in after Natasha and gave a simple order to stop, and the girls fell into their lines in seconds. “Everyone come get a plate and eat.”

The girls acted one by one, each waiting for the girl older than them to get theirs before moving. They all scarfed down their food like rabid animals, though they were completely aware of Darcy watching them, assessing their every breath.

“They’ll need names now,” Natasha told her daughter quietly. “They’re people.”

Darcy slowly turned her head to look at her mother before she gave the woman a small nod.


	5. Chapter 5

Darcy wasn’t surprised in the slightest when Bruce insisted she and the 28 trainees get medical exams. She was perfectly still despite how much blood was taken, how many times she was poked and prodded, and the questions she was asked. She was painfully accustomed to it.

Natasha paced about the waiting room, Bucky seated in a chair nearby. He looked up at her, eyebrows slightly raised. “You’ve never been this anxious before,” he commented.

“Things are different now,” Natasha replied bluntly. “We aren’t just mindless killers anymore, but Darcy seems to think she still is. I don’t want anyone to come for her. I don’t want her to get hurt.” She glanced down the hall to where one of the trainees was sitting in a chair, legs crossed in her lap. She’d just gotten her exam and was waiting for her twin. It was a good thing Darcy had gotten them out; that kind of connection would have been forcibly severed within a year.

Eventually, Dr. Cho left one of the rooms, walking over to Bucky and Natasha. “We have a situation,” she whispered, glancing down the hall at the girl briefly. She turned back to the couple and took a deep breath. “I’ve checked the data over and over, but it all says the same thing.”

Natasha furrowed her eyebrows and crossed her arms. “What does the data say?” she asked, her stomach sinking.

“That… Darcy is the biological mother of all 28 girls,” Dr. Cho explained. “And whoever was the genetic architect of these girls somehow got their hands on a large enough sample of Steve Rogers’s DNA to engineer him as the father.”

The couple was stunned silent.

* * *

 

“So you’re telling me that I have kids… with Darcy… and they’re the girls she brought in yesterday.”

Bucky nodded. “Congratulations, it’s a girl?” he joked, though his words were more awkward than anything else. He took in a deep breath and let it out in a huff. “Look, I’m freaking out, too. I have 28 grandkids!”

Steve let out a tiny laugh and shook his head. “Well, we definitely can’t keep calling them by their letters now.” He pursed his lips before he added in, “Has Darcy said anything?”

“She’s been looking around at names, but they’re not her main concern,” Bucky explained. “She’s still thinking about how to protect them and what to do when they start realizing they’re not just ballerinas.”

Before either could say anything else, a ten-year-old girl came running into the media room, leaping into Steve’s lap. “Hiya!” she greeted the two men. “Волк said I could watch a movie. You wanna watch with me?”

“Sure,” Steve replied, adjusting the girl—his daughter—in his lap. “So volk, what does that mean?”

“Wolf,” the girl and Bucky answered in unison. The girl continued with, “Can we watch _The Little Mermaid_?”

Steve nodded. “Absolutely,” he agreed.

By the end of the movie, the ten-year-old with bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair came to a decision. “I wanna be called Ariel!”

And just like that, the girl was Ariel.

* * *

 

Steve walked in on Darcy making tea the next morning, and he cleared his throat to get her attention. When she didn’t react (superspies always knew when they were being watched, so it wasn’t a surprise), Steve spoke up. “One of them decided her name is Ariel.”

“I’m aware,” Darcy replied coolly. “Apparently they’re mine. And yours.”

“Yeah, Bucky told me.”

There was a moment of silence before Darcy set down her tea and began unbuttoning her blouse.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Steve cut in, putting a hand over Darcy’s to stop her. “I thought you didn’t want… _us_ to be a thing.”

Darcy was completely calm, her eyes emotionless as she said, “I have been informed that we were in a relationship prior to my last mind wipe. Additionally, the fact that you were chosen to provide half the genetic material necessary for the girls’ existence indicates that should you ever be found alive, I would be expected to produce more offspring with you conceived through natural means and then modified after birth.”

Steve stared at Darcy in abject horror. “No,” he objected quietly, shaking his head a little. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Once more, silence filled the room as Darcy assessed Steve before buttoning her shirt back up. “Thank you,” she whispered, turning to her tea. She took a sip and put the cup down again before asking, “What will the other 27’s names be?”

“Whatever they want, I guess,” Steve replied with a shrug. “I’ve never exactly done this parenting thing before.”

Darcy nodded in understanding. “A was born when I was ten; I’m assuming HYDRA removed one of my ovaries in order to make that possible. Even then, I was practically her mother.” She didn’t say anything else on the matter, so Steve let her be.

After another few minutes of silence, A came skipping in, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7:30. “Alright, so I’ve decided on a name,” the redhead declared. She must have gotten that from Natasha, Steve mused, or maybe his own mother whose hair was tinged with orange. “I want to be _Guinevere_ , the woman whose decisions brought down an empire.” A gleeful smile remained on her face, no hint of malice despite her words.

“How appropriate,” Darcy replied, a small smirk on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna try to get some family fluff in before getting back to the plot-y stuff, just to get my mind working again. This chapter did not want to be written!

**Author's Note:**

> Milaya means "sweet girl"


End file.
